Made in Germany, the Great Crane 1916

Joseph Pennell conjured "Made in Germany, the Great Crane" with ink on paper. Imagine him outside, in a factory location, rapidly sketching to capture the colossal crane. Look at the mark-making. It’s all in the details. Each line seems to indicate a sense of structure. You can see a man operating the machine and people going about their daily lives beneath the colossal structure. It gives you the impression of a whole world based on industry. He’s not necessarily celebrating industrialization, but he isn’t denouncing it either, merely recording it for posterity. The great crane is given a sense of scale and dynamism by the marks surrounding it. It is a powerful piece of engineering and the artist appears in awe of it. In some ways, I think he captured something about the way in which human beings build.